By David Crystal

New from Cambridge University Press!

By Peter Mark Roget

This book "supplies a vocabulary of English words and idiomatic phrases 'arranged … according to the ideas which they express'. The thesaurus, continually expanded and updated, has always remained in print, but this reissued first edition shows the impressive breadth of Roget's own knowledge and interests."

This paper examines international auxiliary languages from the point of view that they are products competing in the world linguistic market place. Several factors have contributed to the proliferation of artificial or constructed languages in recent decades. The globalization of social, economic, and intellectual information through the World Wide Web (internet) has made access to the tremendous theoretical and practical progress and educational advances in the field of linguistics, language learning, and language planning. In a world where designer and hobby languages abound, how can an international auxiliary language attract a clientele and achieve the goal of facilitating international communication? The “experiences” of Volapük, Esperanto, Loglan/Lojban, and Klingon are examined as case studies.